Too Much Stress
by munnins-memory
Summary: CHAPTER 2 UP: Haruhi has to study and Tamaki wants to help. But it's never that simple. TamakixHaruhi
1. An Ultimatum

An Ultimatum

Music Room 3 was beautifully decorated today as it normally was. There was no special theme today, but that didn't stop the steady flow of customers. Tamaki sat at a table with three young ladies. He sat with them, flirting as he usually did and made the three girls giggle.

Across the room, Haruhi shook her head. She never understood why these girls swooned. It was obviously fake affection. Haruhi always prided herself of her ability to keep a calm head in most situations, especially when the host club boys tried to flirt with her for fun.

Tamaki caressed the cheek of the young girl who sat on the chair nearest to him. He put on a pained expression and said softly, "Oh, my beautiful princess. You are the light that brightens my world."

Behind him, Haruhi rolled her eyes. The whole charade made her feel like being sick.

The other two girls let out great squeals of joy and blushed, each hoping they'd be next.

Haruhi sat at a table with a glass of water and put the glass down so hard, a great deal of it slopped out.

"What's the matter Haruhi?" Hikaru asked draping himself over the back of her chair.

"Yeah, you seem more annoyed than usual." Kaoru chided in while leaning on the arm of the chair.

"Nothing. It's just been a long week." Haruhi put her hands on her temples and started to rub out a headache that was beginning to rage. Tamaki glanced up, eyes narrowed at the scene behind him.

"That's right. Exams are this week aren't they?" Hikaru looked bored out of his mind just thinking of them.

"You have to stay at the top or you could lose your scholarship, right?" Kaoru didn't bother looking concerned.

"Get off me guys!" Haruhi ducked out from their arms as the two made to hug her. "We've talked about this before; we don't need to keep bringing it up."

Haruhi was on her last nerves. She _had_ been studying all week, and coming back to the frivolous host club was frustrating. She hated the huge difference between the two areas.

"Do you need help to study?" Haruhi jumped at Tamaki's sudden involvement.

"Where did you come from?" Haruhi jumped up out of her chair and clutched her chest and breathed heavily trying to slow her heart down.

"What are you studying? Do you need help?"

"Hey, we're in her class. We'll help her if she needs help," the twins chorused.

"Yeah, but I've already done it and I was top of the class with Kyoya."

"Then why not tutor us too! We need to study!"

"But if you don't stay at the top, you won't be kicked out. So I'm only helping my daughter!"

The twins rolled their eyes. They wondered when he'd finally get off this 'father/daughter' thing.

"Shut up Tamaki-sempai! I don't need any help to study!" Haruhi sat down on the chair she'd jumped out of.

"Fine, don't help us," the twins chimed in, "but you'd better get things done right." The two waltzed away.

"Done right? What does that mean Tamaki-sempai?" Haruhi looked up at Tamaki confused.

Tamaki shrugged. He wasn't about to bother trying to figure out what they meant.

Haruhi sighed again and started to rub her temples again.

"Are you okay? Do you need to go to the infirmary? Are you sick?" Tamaki's questions began to get more and more frantic as more possibilities appeared in his head. "Did they infect you with something? Are they stressing you-?"

"Tamaki-sempai!" Haruhi blushed as everyone turned toward her. Speaking a little more quietly she said, "Tamaki-sempai, calm down. I'm fine. I'm a little stressed out, but I'll be okay. I just need to relax or something."

Tamaki nodded, and seemed like he understood.

"Okay. You just go take a break today and relax."

"But what about my customers?" She looked worried despite the fact that she'd been mostly forced into the job.

"I'll tell them you aren't feeling well. They'll come back, I promise!"

"Good. I can't afford to lose any customers." Haruhi stood up and walked out so she could go somewhere quiet to relax and study.

Tamaki felt his chest tighten. He knew this wasn't her choice of club, but he didn't want her to hate it.

Tamaki sat in a lone chair and started thinking of all the possible outcomes, for some reason only seeing those that ended in Haruhi hating him.

"Looks like the boss is upset again." Kaoru and Hikaru looked at Tamaki over the back of one of the couches where they sat across two young girls staring hungrily at the two, waiting until they did _something_ with each other.

Kyoya, walking by, overheard the twins before they started hanging over each other for their customers' benefits.

Making his way over to Tamaki, he noticed that Haruhi was gone. He'd have to talk to her about that. He imagined it was because of Tamaki though, since Haruhi almost never shirked her duties.

"What's the matter Tamaki?"

"Mommy? What if Haruhi decides to leave when she meets her quota?" Tamaki sounded somewhere between fearful and sad.

"Well…Daddy. It's still a long way before she gets there. I wouldn't worry about it until then." Kyoya studied Tamaki for a moment, wondering how serious he was this time.

"Yeah, but still. I don't want her to _want_ to leave!" Tamaki curled up, pouting.

"You're going to be upset for a long time, aren't you?"

Tamaki's response was to curl up tighter. Kyoya just shook his head.

"I'll come back when you're going to talk again."

Meanwhile, Haruhi was in an empty classroom with her head on the desk. She hated this time of the year. Her exams were piling up again. She couldn't really say all that much since she was the one taking all of the extra classes. But this year was worse.

She had host club duties to worry about and she had to stay at the top of the class. But just the other night her dad had told her some of the worst news yet; they were going to have to move at the end of the year.

So, this is my first Ouran fanfiction. I'm sorry it's short an uneventful. I promise to make the rest better! I just needed a little set up. Let me know what you think or what you want out of this, okay? ^^

Also, I've already edited it a little bit.


	2. Study Time?

Study Time?

Haruhi walked into her empty house.

Her dad had been working a lot lately, so she was usually left to her own devices, but when he came home they would have dinner together. But recently her dad had been staying out later, letting friends buy him drinks.

She knew he wasn't a heavy drinker and he wasn't going to let it get out of control, she still wanted him home. She was just as upset, though she hated to show it.

She put her bag on the floor by her bedroom and put her head down on the kitchen table.

Suddenly she heard knocking at the front door. She jumped up quickly and opened the door a crack.

She felt a mingled sense of happiness and annoyance when she met Tamaki's eyes.

"Tamaki-sempai? What are you doing here?"

"I looked up your subjects!" Tamaki looked excited. "I grabbed my old books and I'm here to help you!"

Haruhi looked at him and shook her head. "You are so strange." She moved aside to let him in anyway. "I wasn't planning to study yet."

"Oh…Well, when do you want to study? Or do you just need a break?"

Tamaki looked so much like a puppy that Haruhi couldn't help but give a small smile. "Would you like a snack or something first? Then we can study."

"Yes!" Tamaki grinned broadly, excited.

Haruhi moved aside so he could enter, noticing for the first time that the rest of the host club wasn't behind him.

"You're alone?"

"I couldn't let those terrible twins get in the way. I had to sneak over!" Tamaki tried to look weary, but Haruhi had caught a glimpse of a very nice car in the street.

"You snuck over, huh? Well let me get a snack ready."

Tamaki bounded over and sat at her table, putting all of his books down. Haruhi put rice into a rice steamer and sat back down at the table.

"Are rice balls okay? I haven't really been able to go to the store lately."

"Rice balls made by my lovely daughter? Of course! Oh, I can't wait!" Tamaki looked ecstatic as Haruhi rolled her eyes.

"Do you want to start now, or wait until the food is ready?"

"Let's start now! Um.." Tamaki looked confused a moment. "What classes are you taking?"

"You offered to tutor me without asking first?"

Tamaki hung his head. "I just wanted to help…"

Haruhi smiled, making Tamaki flush a little. "Well, that's not that bad then. I'm taking Japanese II, Classical Literature, Japanese History, Basic math, Biology, English, French, Health and music."*

Tamaki looked over his books. He knew he had most of the subjects the year before, but his focus was on business, not literature. He looked up at her.

"Well…I can't help you with biology, but I can help with the rest! Especially French!"

"Can we start with French then? I'm not sure I'm all that good at it yet and it's one of my first exams." Haruhi looked slightly embarrassed. She'd never _actually_ asked Tamaki for help before, and it seemed more personal with his French background.

"Yeah! What do you need to learn?"*

"Umm…I need to learn passé compose."

"So you need to learn how to conjugate them?" Haruhi nodded. "Okay, if you want to do passé compose, you have to conjugate avoir. J'ai is 'I have', so you just add the other word afterword. So instead of je dormi, it becomes j'ai dormi." He wrote down the words as he said them for Haruhi.

Haruhi on the other hand nodded, though she was still confused. Tamaki watched her concentrating on the words and smiled to himself. He had such a cute daughter.

They studied for a while before the two jumped at a loud beeping sound.

Tamaki looked around confused until Haruhi jumped up saying, "The rice! I almost forgot! I'll be right back!" Haruhi rushed to the kitchen to make their rice balls.

Tamaki sat for a moment, drumming his fingers on the table before looking down at the homework before sneaking over to the kitchen to watch Haruhi. Haruhi on the other hand was doing her best not to burn herself as she put the rice into a large bowl to cool off a little before she started.

Tamaki watched, edging in without noticing for a moment until Haruhi turned around and jumped.

"Tamaki-sempai! What are you doing?"

"I wanted to see my adorable daughter cooking and being girly!"

Haruhi sighed. He was always complaining about her lack of femininity. Why was it so troublesome for her to act like a guy? It helped her pay off the debts and get customers, so why did he constantly try to blow her cover by dressing her in girly clothes.

Realizing Tamaki was still standing there, she shook her head.

"Do you want to help me Tamaki?"

Haruhi laughed at Tamaki's expression of glee. She imagined he'd never made rice balls before, because there wasn't anything to celebrate in making them.

"So what do I do?"

"You just have to grab a small handful and try and form a ball out of the rice, but be caref-"

"Yeaow! That's really hot!" Tamaki blew on his hands while Haruhi put her hand on her hip.

"I tried to warn you."

"It hurts! Make it stop!"

"Come here." Haruhi wet a towel and quickly cleaned his hand off. "You should be fine now, but we should wait for the rice to cool before we finish making them."

"How long will that take?"

"I don't know. We'll just wait until it cools off enough and then we'll finish." She put the towel in the water and rung it out so that it wasn't dripping and handed it to him. "Hold this on your hand and it'll help."

Tamaki covered his hand and pouted more. "This sucks. I just wanted to help you make rice balls."

"You can help me finish them in a few minutes. It should be cooling off faster since it's a little more spread out." She watched him for a moment until he sighed and nodded. "Let's study for a little bit more. Then we can finish this and eat." He grinned at her as she rolled her eyes. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*Note: I looked up Japanese schedules, and it says they go by hours in the week. So this schedule is based on that, with 34 hours. The only things not on this list that count for hours are an hour of homeroom and club activities. If there are any questions, ask and I'll include the answers in the next chapter.

As for the French section, I'm going off of my own knowledge and I'm also not sure how advanced they would be at this point in school, so bear with me, okay?

Author's Note: This isn't really exciting, but I'm trying to set up some things for later chapters. So next chapter will be Tamaki trying to make commoner's food as well as some other twists that I can manage. Please let me know what you think.

And to answer reviews (er…review lol):

Mrs. Hermoine Jane Granger: Thanks for the review! I'll do my best to write as often as possible. ^^


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